Gary Adams:
CLASS OF 1974
Mt. Whitney High SchoolClass of 1974
Visalia, CA
Gary's Story
I was that kid who got cancer! Many of you wrote me get well cards when i was in the hospital at Stanford. I was given a five percent chance of surviving Ewing's sarcoma. There were three of us at Children's Hospital at Stanford with Ewings; I was the only one who survived.
I went to college for awhile and then dropped out and went to welding school. I made a lot of money for awhile as a certified welder, but it wasn't for me. I was interested in the prosthetics and orthotics labs I went to as a patient. (I lost my left leg above the knee because of damage from the massive radiation treatments I received.) So I went back to college with the goal of becoming a certified prosthetist, and got a job as an orthotic/prosthetic technician at Valley Orthopedic. I enjoyed that job a lot.
I chan...Expand for more
ged my mind, though, because I enjoyed my English classes so much. I quit my job as a lab tech and became a teacher's aide for Fresno Unified. I got a BA degree in English at Fresno State and got my teaching credential and became a teacher in 1986. I taught second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh grades and eight grade math and high school English in summer school.
I had to take disability retirement three years ago because of several orthopedic problems. Now I live on 20 acres in Madera County and garden and raise poultry. I had to give up flying and riding motorcycles, put I spend a lot of time looking at powered parachutes online. It's awfully tempting.
I'd like to get in touch with my old buddies Gary Main, Mike Strawser and Darien Putnam if anyone knows their whereabouts.
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